Chương 1110: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Eight

Dear Diary, So weird, having a family that's supportive. I mean, they go way past being supportive, because it's not just a kind of accepting of all my bullshit support, but it also includes a lot of helping me become my best self support too. Fuck, I might even say that my family here and now isn't entirely dysfunctional. I mean, shit, each of us has our own dysfunctions, but we're not imposing them on other people.

We work with them, yeah, like I wouldn't generally ask any of my ladies except maybe Marie to do improv shit, and while I've shown that I can and will make and execute plans, none of them expect me to be the planner, but that's not so much 'enabling our dysfunctions' as 'shoring up one another's weaknesses'. Dammit, now I'm wondering if we're codependent.

Of course, I'm also wondering if codependence is, like, something to be super concerned about, or if it was just another fucked up symptom of the toxic individualism I grew up with back in the day. Seriously, I'm all about Agency, but I'm also about Consequences, what with the whole 'Redemption' thing. Not to mention Vengeance. So while yeah, I'm fully on board with the idea of personal responsibility, I'm also aware that humans were not meant to live alone. Well, most of us.

I read it at some point, that every human has an amount of social contact below which they get really weird, and another amount above which they get really weird, and that means everybody has a range they are comfortable with. Davey, for example, needs some socializing each and every day. Most of the day, really; that's what she does. Meanwhile Lindsey gets all her surgeon general's daily recommended allowance of socializing at mealtimes, I think.

Then again, she's my most mature kid, I'm pretty sure, which means if she needs more, she's fully capable of seeking it out. I read once that there are folks where those two numbers are like, inverted. Where the 'above this they get weird is below the 'below this they get weird', which means they're weird if they're in the middle ground, and weirder if they go outside those boundaries.

Since by 'weird', mostly people are describing the various flavors of repetitive stress trauma, or really the symptoms thereof, I can only imagine that living like that must be a special kind of hell. At any rate, most humans aren't really meant to live alone, to be the kind of 'rugged individualist' I remember reading about. We're meant to live in families, in little groups that glom together to form larger communities. The whole point of that is depending on one another, helping one another out.

Which is why I'm giving some serious side eye to the entire concept of codependence being a bad thing. But then, I'm not a shrink or a therapist, just somebody who saw way too many of both of those as a kid. But to bring it back around to my family being non-dysfunctional and supportive, it definitely makes me feel good that so long as I show up and am, y'know, present, my kids think that's enough for their birthdays.

My wifiest of wifes manages to make sure that all the food related items are in order, and it looks like my maker son has made sure that everybody gets some kind of present. So we spent all day yesterday with doing karaoke. I mean, no karaoke machine, but everybody sang old songs they knew or played one of the kits' instruments. All while Garde, Calliope, and Erato sat there like a panel of judges. Okay, happy smiley laughing clapping judges, but still, that's what they wanted to do.

They pulled Borysthenis over with them as well, even though her birthday wasn't until today, but somehow the kits had decided that since three of the four musicians were on the tenth, they got the family to do music things on that day, and Anise and Felicia could decide what to do on the eleventh. That didn't sound all that fair to me, but mostly because the eleventh is Isadora and Hailee's birthday too. While the rest of the kits were all hitting the buffet during dinner, I asked Hailee about it.

She just smiled at me and said, "it's okay."

"Your birthday should be better than 'okay'. It should be something you remember. I mean, maybe not forever, but at least for the rest of the year. You ought to be doing stuff that makes you happy." She tilted her head.

"But I am?" I realized right then that she definitely was a better person than me. I mean, seriously, I love my family, and I love to have them doing things they enjoy, but I think on my birthday I'd want to be doing something related to me, not to my sisters. Then again, she's always been preternaturally copacetic. So I just hugged her and said, "let me know if there's anything you want to do, okay?" I got a hug in return.

"Okay, Mama." Of course, at that point the Fates just had to fuck with me a little. As a treat. Orla showed up, in uniform, looking less than happy. I stepped over to her, then stepped into the front hallway, where Saffron joined us.

"What's up, Orla? Somehow I don't think you're here for cake." She sighed and shook her head.

"I'm sorry to interrupt the celebrations, but the captains we're negotiating with have insisted on speaking with someone 'of a more senior stature'."

"Shit." Saffron's quiet sigh ignited something inside me. Before she could do anything, I took her hand, stepped her back into the party, and said, "you wait here. I'll handle this." Then I stepped back to Orla, took her hand, popped The Dress on, and asked, " Black Dragon?" She shook her head.

"The Penetrating." I nodded.

"Could you?" A moment later we stood in the big stern castle room of the Penetrating Tentacle, which was big enough that the three guys sitting around the table didn't really fill it. I realized Orla had collapsed into herself as all of them looked at me and one of them, the biggest dude among them, laughed coarsely and said, "we demanded someone who could guarantee any agreements, and you bring us a prostitute?" This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I must be getting more mature, because during the Norfolk campaign that would have ended that motherfucker's singing career right there. Instead I just sighed, smiled, thought, Sister? and said, "what's your name?"

"I am John Thatch, the Blackbeard, of the Revenge." I shook my head, words slipping out before I could stop them.

"Blackbeard? Dude, wasn't he from the Caribbean?"

"Aye, my forefather bore the name first, when he sailed from Rich Man's Port, before it became a filthy den of noble fellating Fae." I pursed my lips and nodded.

"Okay, points for proper use of the word 'fellating', although the current Overlord being of the female variety it maybe oughta be 'cunnilinguing'. If that's even the proper word. But still, good to meet you, John." I turned to the next guy, who if the big guy looked like a linebacker, this guy reminded me more of a running back. Still kinda big, but less 'overwhelming big' and more 'well built' big. He also looked more like he hailed from somewhere close to the equator rather than, y'know, London.

"What's your name?" He smiled at me, rubbing his hand across his clean shaven chin.

"Redbeard, of the Dreadnaught." After a smiling pause to let me know he realized how silly the name sounded, "tenth of that name. It's more of a title, really."

"Good to meet you, Red." The next guy wasn't. A guy, that is. I'd missed that at first, because she was just as decked out for high seas mischief as the rest of them. Like, none of them lacked some kind of drip, mostly in the form of jewelry and nice coats, but they also each had at least two obvious fighting knives, not to mention a bunch of little bulges that had to be weapons. Okay, I thought they were weapons. But at least two of the next pirate's bulges were not.

At least not weapons that let you win a duel to the death most of the time. She smiled at my momentary silence as I realized she was a she, and said, "Anne Rackham, of the Tigress." She'd emphasized the 'rack' in Rackham, really obviously so. Then she laughed.

"I'm guessing you're not a prostitute then?" I smiled at her.

"I wear my Holy Garb and everything, and you're the first one to realize that. Thanks, by the way. I'm Tabitha Diaz. Phileo Hero-in-Waiting." John opened his mouth, but I drove over him.

"High Priestess of Loki. Champion of Loki and the Alliance. Also Patron Goddess of the Alliance. So, y'know, if I make an agreement with you, the Alliance will probably keep it. If not, I will, personally." John snorted.

"Really? You're a Goddess?" That's when I looked out the big glass windows at the back of the ship.

"Sister?" My Kraken High Priestess rose out of the waves, lifted by Leviathan's shell. I turned back to John, whose mouth had dropped open.

"Yeah, she's one of my High Clergy. The little one. The big one is one of my Pantheon, goes by the name of Leviathan." She was also probably doing whatever Sister told her, because Leviathan was quite possibly the dimmest sophont I'd ever encountered, but these guys didn't need to know that. Of course Redbeard had to feel some kinda way.

"You would threaten us?" I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Look, I needed you to see my bona fides. You get that I'm a Goddess?" He nodded. I looked to John, who nodded absently while staring at Sister and Leviathan. Then again, she'd started doing that funky mesmerizing pulsing pattern that cuttlefish are known for. I turned to Anne, who shrugged and nodded.

"Okay. Look, I'd love to sit down and hammer out some kinda deal with all of you, but today is my kid's birthday. Which means I'm really not in the mood for a fight, either." Red took that opportunity to half shout, "more delays!" I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "okay. Look. I get that time is money, but right now if we really wanted, we could just sink your shit. With you on it."

"We would fight! Even against such a beast!" I didn't answer at first. Just brought tentacles up from under the waves. More and more, until the surface of the ocean kinda writhed.

"Yeah. If I have to, I'll send for the rest of the Kraken. Including the Hunters, who think sailors are tasty treats. But honestly, if you make me fight today? I won't send in my ships or my Kraken or my little buddy Leviathan." I snuck surreptitious tentacles in behind each of them, stepped us all to the deck of the stern castle, and brought enough tentacles in to blot out the sky. I mean, just a bowl around the Penetrating, but these three didn't know that.

"I'll just sink your rowboats myself. Or fuck, maybe I'll just off you three and ask your crews what they think of you deciding to fight a fuckin' force of nature who didn't even want to fight today."

"You..." Red stuttered to a stop, likely because of the blade very close to his eyes. Anne, who'd brought that blade out without taking her eyes off me, said, "or?"

"Or you guys agree to meet with me and the Imperator herself on Wednesday, and just enjoy our hospitality until then." I turned to Orla.

"We could even take them over to the Black Dragon maybe?" She sighed.

"I suppose state secrets aren't secret when the Patron Goddess decides to share them?"

"I mean, don't take them to the engine rooms or anything, but there's a nice dining room somewhere, right?"

"What of our crews?" asked Anne.

"Give 'em another day off, or whatever. Have the Black Dragon drop anchor, they can moor themselves to her anchor chain or some shit like that."

"Doesn't work like that," muttered Orla. Anne just shook her head.

"We really didn't expect to be out much longer."

"Fuck. Low on supplies?" She shrugged. I dropped the tentacles, thought, thanks, Sister, then waved to her as she sank below the waves, one tentacle up and waving. With the view clear, I looked around until I spotted the Black Dragon, and the ships arrayed between the Tentacles and my battleship. I turned to Orla.

"Can you guys handle resupplying them?" She sighed.

"As you wish, Champion." Anne head tilted.

"You'd resupply your enemies?"

"Yeah, any of your guys die yet?"

"No." I turned to Orla.

"Any of ours?" She shook her head, and I turned back to the pirate captains.

"Yeah, so that whole 'enemies' thing is maybe up in the air right now. That's what negotiations are about, after all." She looked like she was wavering.

"Look, if you guys want, just to make sure I don't forget and wander off to do some other shit, you can come home with me and spend the next day relaxing at the Homestead. Or join in the party." At John's look of almost anticipation, I rolled my eyes.

"This is a party for four one year olds, just to be clear. So, y'know, not likely to be a lot of booze. Also, if I see any of your weapons come out, even odds whether I vaporize them or shove them up your ass after I take them away from you. Just to make my position clear." Anne disappeared her knife faster than she'd brought it out. Red jerked and did that puffed out chest some guys did sometimes, but didn't say anything.

"Fine. You will provision our ships, we will return to your homestead with you, and you and the Imperator of the Alliance will negotiate with us on Wotansday?" I looked at John and Anne, who both nodded.

"Looks like."

"Fine." Which is how we had three genuine pirate captains in residence for Anise and Felicia's day of partying. Which both of them loved. Even if Red seemed a little intimidated by the size of my one year old kits when Isadora leaned in to blow out her candle.